A Flood Of Flowers; How the tulip came to challenge Dutch morality.(Tulipmania)(Book review)

Byline: Jack Livings

In the early 17th century, new trade routes to Africa and the Far East brought regular shipments of exotica to Dutch ports, and wealthy collectors amassed shells, gemstones, paintings, coins, marbled paper, even dogs. Almost anything deemed beautiful, rare or new was collectible. The tulip was all three. According to lore, its arrival created a country-wide speculative financial bubble that in 1637 popped, ruining lives and crippling the Dutch economy.

In the meticulously researched "Tulipmania" (University of Chicago Press; 400 pages ), Anne Goldgar tells another story entirely. In her account, the tulip traders were wealthy merchants with money to burn--hardly a representative cross-section of Dutch society. Far from wiping out the Dutch economy, she writes, the 1637 crash only dented the bank accounts of those rich enough to speculate in the first place. Meanwhile, in the two ...